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Jim Byrd

The Seventh Trumpet

Revelation 11:12-19
Jim Byrd January, 3 2018 Video & Audio
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Jim Byrd
Jim Byrd January, 3 2018
What does Revelation 11 say about the second coming of Jesus?

Revelation 11 describes the events surrounding the second coming of Jesus, emphasizing the final judgment and the establishment of His kingdom.

In Revelation 11, we see a vivid portrayal of the second coming of Jesus. The seventh trumpet signals the culmination of God's plan, bringing about the ultimate judgment and the establishment of Christ's kingdom on earth. John offers an overview of the events that will transpire when Jesus returns, indicating that all the righteous will be gathered together, and the kingdoms of this world will fall under Christ's sovereignty. This passage affirms that His coming will not be secretive; rather, it will be a grand display witnessed by all, as recorded in verses 12 through 19. The narrative assures believers of their hope and the justice awaiting the unrighteous, reminding us to live in light of His imminent return.

Revelation 11:12-19

Why is Christ's death significant for believers?

Christ's death is significant because it satisfied divine justice and provided a way for believers to be reconciled with God.

The significance of Christ's death lies in its role as the perfect sacrifice that fulfilled every demand of divine justice against sin. According to the New Testament, particularly Hebrews, old covenant sacrifices could never atone for sin completely, but Jesus offered Himself once and for all (Hebrews 10). His bloody death not only established an everlasting righteousness but also opened the door for believers to have a genuine relationship with God. We are declared righteous in His sight, redeemed from our transgressions, and welcomed into His presence. This sacrifice is the cornerstone of Christian faith, as it assures us that our sins are forgiven and that we stand accepted before a holy God solely on the basis of Christ's achievements.

Hebrews 10:12, Romans 3:24-26, 1 John 3:5

What is the covenant of grace?

The covenant of grace is God's everlasting agreement to save His elect through Jesus Christ.

The covenant of grace refers to the eternal promise that God made with Himself, involving the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to save a multitude of sinners through Jesus Christ. This covenant was established before the foundation of the world, emphasizing the sovereign initiative of God in salvation (Ephesians 1:4-5). Jesus, as the surety of the elect, enters into this world to fulfill the covenant by paying the penalty for their sins and establishing righteousness on their behalf. Those chosen in this covenant are given an everlasting union with Christ, assuring their salvation and securing their place in heaven. This doctrine is foundational for understanding Reformed theology and highlights God’s grace and mercy toward His people.

Ephesians 1:4-5, Romans 8:30

Why do Christians believe in God's sovereignty?

Christians believe in God's sovereignty because it is revealed throughout Scripture, affirming His ultimate authority over all creation.

The doctrine of God's sovereignty is a central tenet of Christian faith, particularly within Reformed theology. It underscores the belief that God has absolute authority and control over every aspect of creation, including individual lives and the unfolding of history. Scriptural references, such as Psalm 103:19 and Romans 8:28, illustrate that God works all things according to the counsel of His will. Additionally, the sovereignty of God is manifested in His election of believers, where He chooses individuals for salvation not based on any foreseen merit but according to His own purpose and grace (2 Timothy 1:9). This doctrine provides comfort and assurance to Christians, reinforcing that nothing occurs outside of God's divine plan and that His promises will ultimately be fulfilled.

Psalm 103:19, Romans 8:28, 2 Timothy 1:9

Sermon Transcript

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Three of them in our song books
that we sing. Of course, everybody knows Amazing
Grace, but that's another one that he wrote that's excellent. I'm just thinking there's James
and John together. James singing John's song. That was wonderful. All right, let's go to Revelation
11. Talk about the seventh trumpet
this evening. Revelation chapter 11. The last several verses of Revelation,
the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, The last several verses
of this 11th chapter give us some events that happen when
the Lord Jesus comes back the second time. They're not a lot
of events, but rather this is kind of a... John, later he will
deal with things more in detail. Now he just kind of gives us
an overview of what is going to happen when the Lord Jesus
arrives the second time. You remember that this is the
end of the third vision and we've already stated that every vision
that the Savior gave to John will not only take John but all
of his readers from the first advent of our Savior up to the
second advent, the second appearance of our Lord in this world. His first appearing happened
2,000 years ago. We're nearing that time of year
when most people at least give some thought to the fact that
Jesus was born in a manger The vast majority of them don't
know the reason why he was born. They don't know why he came.
They don't really know who it was. They just had some kind
of, I don't know, sentimental thoughts toward a little baby
that was born. And most people don't know that's
the godman who was lying there in the manger. That was the Savior. And He's born into this world. The reason for His birth was
to save His people from their sins. This was something He agreed
to do before, along with the Father, He ever made the world. He entered into a legal binding agreement, a covenant
with the Father and the Holy Ghost. And this legal binding
agreement is what we call the covenant of grace. God ordained to save a multitude
of sinners which no man can number, but he numbered them all because
the Lord chose these gave them to the Lord Jesus, the Savior,
surety of the elect. Our names are said to be written
down in the Lamb's Book of Life. And our Lord Jesus entered into
this world 2,000 years ago, born of a virgin, in order to do the work of redemption
that he volunteered to do and the covenant of grace. You see,
God in that everlasting testament, or covenant, or legal binding
contract, He united, He gave the Lord Jesus these people. And such was the gift of these
people to the Son of God that we're forever bound together
with Christ Jesus. That's an everlasting union. It can't ever be separated. We
can never be separated from Christ Jesus, our surety and our Savior. God put us together. He put us
in Christ Jesus. That's what the Word of God says.
In fact, if you go to Ephesians, the first chapter, we read that
we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
God chose Him to be the Savior and then chose us in Him. Christ
be my first elect, God said, then He chose us in Christ, our
covenant ahead. And our Lord Jesus entered into
this world the very first time for the express reason, for this
express reason, to answer every demand of divine
justice against His people. We had multitudes of sins. Can't even count them all. If I've sinned today, Lord,
please forgive me. You can just forget that if.
You have your cesspool of iniquity. You say, I'm a child of God.
I know you are. I know you are. But you're still
a cesspool of iniquity in yourself. And the good that you would do,
you can't do. And the evil you don't want to
do, that's what you do. And if you don't think that's
so, you need to re-read Romans chapter 7. Because there we find the beloved,
beloved apostle saying, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? I'm so wretched. And we want to say, but wait!
You're a servant of God. You're an apostle. You are the
apostle Paul. You're not one whit behind the
other apostles. You don't mean you're wretched,
do you? He says, oh yes, oh wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.
I thank God through Christ Jesus, my Lord. You talk to any of God's elect
to whom Christ has been revealed. I know there are some of God's
elect who haven't been revealed to Him yet. He will be! But you
talk to any of God's people to whom the Lord Jesus has been
revealed as the Lord, Savior and Redeemer and Satisfier of
divine justice, and the Lord's people will say, and myself,
I'm nothing. Christ Jesus is my worthiness,
and He's my fitness, and He's my righteousness. He's all the
righteousness I've got, and He's all the righteousness I need.
That's why He's said to be the Lord our righteousness. And that's the name whereby we
shall be called in that last day, the Lord our righteousness. You see, the bride takes on the
name of the bridegroom. That's the name of the bridegroom,
the Lord Our Righteousness. And in that day, who shall we
be? What shall our name be? The Lord Our Righteousness. That's
our name. Because we'll stand before God
in His righteousness. You see, He entered into this
world to establish everlasting righteousness. He came, Daniel
9 says, to bring in everlasting righteousness. We didn't have
it. We couldn't produce it. But he did. He already had a
righteousness of his own. He didn't have to establish a
righteousness of his own. He had to establish a righteousness
for us. He had to make us right with
God. And by his bloody death, he did
that. He satisfied every demand of
justice. That's why he entered into this
world. He didn't come to start a new religion. He didn't come
to just be an example of how we ought to live. He didn't come
in order to show us the right way to be submissive to God in
death. Though all of those things, we
learn much from Him by way of example, but He came as the Savior. That's the reason He entered
into this world. He shall save His people from
their sins. And having finished the work
that the Father gave him to do, God exalted him. He who died has been exalted. His exaltation consists of his
resurrection. Forty days later his ascension. He went back to glory and all
of heaven welcomed Him. That's part of His exaltation.
When the Father said, sit here at My right hand, I'll make all
you enemies your footstool. He sits there at the right hand
of God, executing God's will. He's bringing to pass everything
that God ordained to do. And there He intercedes for us.
We have an intercessor with the Father. We have a mediator with
the Father. And everything we do by way of
worship, we see God's face as we pray. And we seek to serve
the Lord during the week and on the Lord's day. All of these
things that we seek to do for God, they've got to go to God
through Christ Jesus. He's got to take all that we
do, and as someone said, He's got to make it presentable to
God. He dips it in His blood. He puts the fragrance of His
own beauties and His own comeliness, His own righteousness upon the
things that we do, and then He presents them to the Father,
and the Father receives them. Both ourselves and what we do
are received by God because of Christ Jesus. Not because of
who we are and not because of the way we do things, but because
of who our Savior is. There's no fluctuation there.
There's no wiggle room on that. God doesn't accept you for who
you are or what you do. You say, but you're a preacher
of the Gospel. God only receives the messages
that I preach upon the basis of the death of the Lord Jesus. Somebody said a person got quite
offended when a preacher said, maybe from this pulpit, and I
know it's been said from this pulpit and other pulpits as well,
that there's enough sin in all that we do for God to send us
right into perdition. But that's right. That's right. Let's don't ever get away from
that. We must always, we must always take our position before
God as a sinner. A sinner who looks to and needs
the Savior. Don't ever get such a big shot
that you grow out of that. That's not growth in grace when
you get beyond that. That's growth in arrogance. That's
growth in self-righteousness. Listen to what the Apostle says. Here's what the Apostle Paul
says in 1 Timothy chapter 1. He said, This is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. I am chief. Not, I used to be. Oh, what a
rebel I was years ago in my Phariseeism, in my self-righteousness. Oh,
I was really something back in those days. He said, I'm something
now. I'm still a sinner. And I always
need the merits of Christ Jesus. I always need the Savior Himself
to represent me before God. He's my only righteousness, you
see. He came down here the first time,
His first coming, His first advent, to save us. 1 John chapter 3
says, you know that He was manifested for what reason? Take away our
sin. Take away our sin. And in Him
is no sin. And there's going to be His second
coming. Someday He's coming back. Our
Lord spoke to the Jewish leaders just before His death, and He
mentioned that. In fact, hold your place there.
Look at Matthew. Go back to Matthew 26. Look at
Matthew chapter 26. You know, the Jewish leaders, the Sanhedrin,
they tried to find some men who would lie against Jesus of Nazareth,
bring some false witnesses forth, and they had a hard time doing
that. But finally, they found two false witnesses. Why do you think they look so
hard to find two? Because in the mouth of two or
three witnesses let every word be established. They knew the
law, they despised the law giver and the law fulfiller. They're
sticklers for the law. They finally, at last, verse
60 says, at last came two false witnesses. And they said, this
fellow, Matthew chapter 26, verse 61, And said, this fellow said, I
am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three
days. Is that what he said? No. Enemies
of the gospel are always misquoting scripture. He said, destroy this
temple, and I'll raise it again in three days. John chapter 2
is where he said that. This he said referring to his
body. Well, at this point, the high
priest arose and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? What
is it which these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace.
And then the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee
by the living God. Now this obviously got the attention
of our Lord Jesus, because when the high priest said this, our
Lord Jesus is bound. He's got to give an answer now.
I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou
be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said unto him, Thou hast
said, you said it correctly. You said it correctly. Nevertheless,
I say unto you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man, You'll
see Him sitting on the right hand of power and you'll see
Him coming in the clouds of heaven. You'll see Him. You'll see me
again! You'll see me again! Coming in
the clouds of heaven. And then the high priest just
went berserk. I mean, he just lost control. He rent his garments. He tore
his clothes. saying he had spoken blasphemy. What further need have we of
witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his
blasphemy. What think ye? And they answered
and said all together, he's guilty of death. He's guilty of death. Our Lord said just before he
died on that cross, man, I just want you to know something. You're
going to see me coming one day in the clouds of heaven. The
exalted Son of Man. And then they just lost it. They
lost it. You'll see me sitting at the
right hand, sitting, that indicates the work that He took on to do,
He accomplished. Wasn't any seat in the Old Testament
tabernacle. Those who read Hebrews chapter
10, and you have read that passage on several occasions, I know
you have. wasn't any seat in the Old Testament tabernacle
because those priests offered sacrifices, oftentimes which
could never take away sin, day in, day out, morning sacrifice,
evening sacrifice. And then the sacrifices that
the people brought for personal transgressions, the trespass
offerings and the sin offerings, all of these offerings, multiplied
sheep and oxen and goats and turtledoves and pigeons. They
all died on Jewish altars, but all of them together, they couldn't
ever put away one sin. But this man, this man, after
he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, how many sacrifices? One sacrifice. Forever. And after he offered it, the
father said, sit down. Your work of redemption is done.
The work of reconciliation has been finished. He offered himself
the sacrifice for our sins. And our Lord Jesus said, I'm
going to be coming in the clouds of heaven. And that is briefly, go back
to Revelation chapter 11, that's briefly what this is saying here.
And as I said, John is just, he's going to give us an overview
of what's going to happen when Jesus comes back. He'll give
us details later. That will come later in the book
of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Here we see the purpose of God
fulfilled. As all of the righteous are gathered
together. Watch this in verse number 12.
They heard a voice. They heard a voice. Who heard
a voice? The saints of God. What did we read there in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 4? A shout. A shout. We hear the voice of God, the
voice of God says, come up hither, come up and meet me. And He gathers
His people unto Himself, and they ascended up to heaven in
a cloud, and their enemies beheld them. Now listen, when the Lord
Jesus comes back the second time, there's not going to be anything
secretive about it. People are not going to be wondering,
wondering what's happened. Where'd all of those people that
went to such and such a church, where'd they go? Where'd my neighbor
go? No, they don't know what happens. Because this is the
end. This is the end of time. God
who started that clock ticking back in Genesis chapter 1. God
created the heavens and the earth. And that clock started ticking.
He's gonna stop it. And our Lord Jesus is going to
come back. coming back in the clouds of
heaven. They ascended up to heaven in a cloud, their enemies saw
them. The same hour, earthquake, 10th part of the city fell. Earthquake,
people were killed, of them 7,000, and the remnant were frightened
to give glory to the God of heaven. These are the sorts of things
that are going to happen when Christ Jesus comes. He says,
the second woe is past, and behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
Now comes the third woe. The third woe. And the seventh
angel sounded. The seventh angel. It wasn't
but seven of them. We saw that earlier. It wasn't but seven
angels. To each of the angels given a trumpet. And each of them to sound the
trumpet. And now the seventh, the last trumpet sounds. And
there were great voices in heaven. Great voices. All of heaven erupts. And here's what they say, the
kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and
of His Christ. And He shall reign forever and
ever. Loud voices. You see, when our
Lord Jesus comes back and all the people of God are gathered
together, all of the kingdoms of this world which have been
usurped by Satan. They've been usurped by Satan.
They're all going to bow to the Lordship of Jesus Christ the
Savior. This is the third woe. It's woe
to the unbelievers. This is a woe to those who don't
know God. This is a woe to those who are
in their own self-righteousness, in their own sinfulness, when
the Lord Jesus comes back. Here's the thing, when He comes
back, it's just going to be two groups of people. And to the
one group, it's going to be great big woe. It's not going to be
good for them. Listen, if you die in unbelief,
it's not going to be good for you. You'll be in this group.
You'll be in this group that it's a woe to them. Oh, the Lord
is coming back and woe unto you because you're going to spend
forever separated from God and everything that's good and everything
that's righteous and everything that is beautiful. You'll be
separated from all light, from all life. Separated from God. What is this place called hell? Well, I can tell you this, it's
separation from God. It's separation from God. Our
Lord Jesus, He endured this on the cross. He didn't go to a
burning place called hell, we know that. But He endured the
very hell that is the wrath of God in His own soul. When He
died. When He was suffering on the
cross. And He said, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? It's to be forsaken by God. That
is hell. That is hell. They're going to meet some people
that they're going to be in... forever they're going to be in
trouble. Listen. I would say to all of
you tonight, come to Christ Jesus. The door of mercy is open. And
I just pray that God will draw you to Him, because you're not
going to come unless He draws you. But if He draws you, you
will come. All that the Father giveth me,
they shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I'll
in no wise cast out. Listen, there's a judgment coming.
Preacher, you wouldn't try to scare anybody, would you? I wish
I could scare somebody. But my putting some kind of fright
into you is not going to change anything. It's the Lord who's
got to convince you. It's the Spirit of God who convinces
of sin and judgment and righteousness. It's the Spirit of God. And oh,
Spirit of God, do your work. Do your work within the hearts
of these who are under the sound of my voice. Convince us. Convince us if I need of Christ
Jesus. Because you see, if God doesn't
do something for us, we will go to hell. And God's got to do the work.
It's not up to you, it's up to Him. Oh God of mercy, show mercy. Oh God of saving grace, That's
what we need. That's what we need. I'm not
trying to get you to do something for God. I sure wish God would
do something for you and something for me. Woe, the third woe, the third
woe. He says in verse number 16, the
four and twenty elders which sat before God on their seats,
they fell on their faces and they worshipped. Who are these
four and twenty elders? We've already said these are
representatives of the Old Testament church and the New Testament
church. In other words, this is symbolic of all the people
of God. Well, what are all the people
of God going to do when Christ Jesus comes back? Worship God. And you know what? That will
be what we'll be doing forever. Worshipping God. Worshipping
God. We'll be doing what we want to
do. I'm doing what I want to do tonight. You're doing what
you want to do tonight. Worshipping God. But our worship
is poor worship. Isn't it? It's poor worship.
I mean, I have to say, and I say, and you all would say this too,
Lord, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my pitiful attempt
to worship you tonight. I want to do better, but I'm
just an old sinner, Lord. I tell you, I look forward to
the day when I will worship Him without distraction. without having to think about
anything else. You folks, you got a lot on your
mind. Some of you who are working, you got your jobs on your mind.
All of us, our families are on our mind. We got a lot of things
to occupy our attention. That's just the fact of the matter,
isn't it? You got property you have to think about. The doctor's
visits and all those kinds of things. But there's going to
be a day when we're not going to have but one occupation. Won't that be wonderful? To be
totally devoted to Jesus Christ. What a day that will be. When
my Jesus I shall see. And I'll look upon His face,
the one who saved me by His grace. And He takes me by the hand and
leads me into the Promised Land. Oh, what a day, glorious day
that's going to be. And forevermore, He'll occupy
our attention. Hear that? They worship God saying,
we give thee thanks. We give thee thanks, Lord God
Almighty, which art and was and art to come, because thou hast
taken to thee great power and has reigned. We're praising the
Lord Jesus. What does this mean here? Thou
hast taken to Thee great power. I thought He's always had great
power. Well, as God, He has always had great power, but as the God-man,
it's been given it to Him and He's taken it. Because He earned
the right. You see, here is more symbolic
language of exactly what happened back in chapter 5. Where in chapter
5, there's that book sealed with seven seals. Don't lose sight
of that because we're still in this book. It's being opened
and this is the Lord Jesus who is worthy to take the book and
loose the seals thereof. That's what was yelled throughout
heaven and earth. Who's worthy? And one was found
to be worthy, the lamb who was slaughtered. He's worthy to take
the book. And you know what he does? He
goes up and he takes the book out of the hand of God. He has
received all power in heaven and in earth to accomplish the
Father's will. See, this is all tied together. Thou hast taken of Thee great
power. And He takes the book. This is
the taking of the book. And Thou hast reigned. But now
look at verse 18. And the nations were angry. Why are the nations angry? You know, when the Scriptures
were originally given, it wasn't divided into chapters and verses.
I sure am glad the Scriptures are. So it helped us to find
this passage of Scripture. But it wasn't divided into chapters
and verses. So I would ask you this. Why,
why are the nations angry? And here's the reason. Thou hast
reigned. And the nations were angry. That's another way of saying
the Lord is sovereign and that's what angers the nations. I tell
you what, you want to stir up some anger in some of these religionists. They don't know God. They're
big on man's will. Salvation by your decision. You
talk to them about the reign of God. God's reign in creation. God's reign in providence. God's
reign in grace. And I'll tell you what you're
going to find out. They'll become angry. They'll become angry. Luke chapter 4, our Lord Jesus,
you know, He spent the first year of His public ministry about
a year in Judea. After the first year of his public
ministry, then he goes into Galilee. And in Galilee, he goes to Nazareth,
where he was raised. Born in Bethlehem, raised in
Nazareth. Began his public ministry in
Capernaum. He goes to Nazareth. Goes in
the synagogue. They gave him the book of God.
This is a famous preacher and healer who has come back home.
And he began to read the scriptures. And he said, now this day the
Spirit of God is upon me. He sent me to heal and give sight
to the blind, preach the gospel to the poor, so on and so forth.
He closed the book and he said, now this day this scripture is
fulfilled right now. Got their attention. Then he
said, let me tell you two stories. Back in the days of Elijah, sure
were a lot of lepers or a lot of widows, excuse me, a lot of
widows in Israel. They're going hungry because
in the days of Elijah, there's a famine. He prayed and it didn't
rain. He prayed again, it did rain.
So when he prayed and it didn't rain, famine came. He said, the
Lord Jesus said, a lot of widows in the days of of Elijah, because
Israel's army, a lot of the men had died. A lot of widows, starving
to death, going hungry. No food, no water. But God sent
his preacher to a widow woman. But he said, she's a Gentile.
He didn't even go to the Jewish widows. What's he preaching about? Distinguishing
grace. Sovereign grace. And he said,
let me tell you another story. In the days of Elisha, lots of
lepers, but he didn't heal any of them,
any of the Jewish lepers. He healed one man of leprosy,
but he is Naaman, and he was a Gentile. You know what happened
to that church group? Them fine, upstanding, religious
people? Them church-going people? They
were filled with madness. Yeah. They raged out against
him. And they drug him out of the
city. And they had every intention to kill him, to murder him. He slipped right through their
mitts. That's what it's talking about right here. Thou hast reigned
and the nations were angry. Our brother read to us tonight
from Psalm 2. Why do the nations rage? Why
do they imagine a foolish thing, a vain thing? Listen, God has
ordained that His Son be the ruler of rulers. In fact, the
Lord said, the Lord God of glory, the Father said to the Son, ask
of me, I'll give you anything you want. Based on what? Based on Him finishing the work
of redemption that the Father gave Him to do. He said, ask
of me anything. It's yours. He said, I'll give
you the heathen for your inheritance. And all the nations of the world,
listen, all the kingdoms are His. They've all been given to
Him, you see. And that which irritates the
nations of the earth, the men, the wicked men and women of the
world, even though they're religious, is this, Jesus Christ reigns. He doesn't want to reign. He
doesn't desire to be the Lord. He is the Lord, the sovereign
God of heaven and earth. And that's what makes people
angry. That nothing like the doctrine of God's sovereign grace
just stir up the hearts of men and women. And he says then in verse 18,
thy wrath is come, the time of the dead that they should be
judged. Oh, it's judgment time. You see, John has given us an
overview. It's judgment time that thou
should give reward unto thy servants, the prophets, to the saints,
to them that fear thy name, small and great, and shouldest destroy
them which destroy the earth. It's judgment day and there's
not going to be any mercy. It's all according to the strictest
justice. You, in that day, will get just
exactly what you deserve. I don't care who you are. Everybody on the internet, you
watch, you listen. In the Judgment Day, you'll get
exactly what you deserve. The wicked will get what they
deserve, and the righteous will get what we deserve. Because
the wicked will be judged upon the basis of their own works
written in a book. It's said to be written in the
books. Revelation chapter 20, the books were opened. The books
were opened. God doesn't need books to remember
what people do. That's for our benefit. So that
we'll understand there's going to be a recollection of all that
men have done. Said and done, thought, imagined. The vanity of men is going to
be exposed. And the wicked will be judged,
they'll get a reward for their works. Well, what is the wages
of sin? Anybody? What's the wages of
sin? It's death. That's what the wages of sin
is, it's death. Romans chapter 6 verse 23, it's
death. And those who live and die godless
and graceless and Christless, They're going to reap the wages
of their sins. That's death. Forever death. Eternal death. Well, what about the righteous?
They're going to be judged by our works as well. And we're
going to get exactly what's coming to us. A just reward. And I tell you, our reward is
going to be everlasting bliss and glory. Because when the books
are open, Not going to be any sins laid to our charge, because
Jeremiah chapter 50 and verse 20 says, in that day the sins
of Israel and Judah shall be sought for. Not going to be found. Over in Isaiah 41, 42, I'll have to look up the exact
reference if you want to know the reference. The Lord says,
I blotted out your transgressions like a cloud. They're gone. And
you know what's on the books of God? Perfect obedience. Perfect righteousness. That's
ours. We're going to be rewarded for
that. We say, well, man, I've never done anything perfect in
my life. Oh, I didn't say you have. But your representative,
He is your righteousness and He is your perfection. And all
of His obedience is in the book. It's in the book. And God's going to look, James
Ferguson Byrd. I was telling folks back there
in Kemper Corner before the service started, I said, you know, it's
James Ferguson Byrd, but I said, you can call me Jay Ferguson
Byrd if you want to. It's kind of sounding like Jay
Paul Gaddy. That just kind of rolls off the tongue. It makes
me sound more important. James Ferguson Byrd. The books
are open. Perfect obedience to my law. Hum thou or enter into the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world." And somebody says,
how in the world? I know that guy. I knew him when
he was a kid. I know some of the stuff he did.
And my school teachers say, not that guy. I got some of the things
written down in my books that he did. But God says, nothing
but perfection. Because you see, all of the obedience
of the Lord Jesus, up to and blessedly including His death,
charged to my account. That's what's in the books. And
the books of God aren't wrong. Now get what's coming to me. Everlasting bliss. Isn't that
wonderful? See, this is a salvation all
of grace. That's what this is. It's all
of grace. Look at verse 19, my time, I'm
sure, about gone. And he says, and the temple of
God was opened. This is the second time in the
chapter that the temple of God has been mentioned. Actually,
it's mentioned two times in verses 1 and 2, where the temple of
God was measured on earth. And now, here's the temple of
God in heaven. The temple of God can be the
Lord Jesus Himself. He is the temple of God. The
temple of God can be heaven itself. The temple of God sometimes is
said to be the people of God. You are the temple of God. And
here we're looking into the abode of God. We're looking into the
temple of God. And it's open in heaven. It's
open. Listen. It says there was seen
in His temple the Ark of the Testament. You have studied the
tabernacle in the temple, the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark
of the Testament. Could you see the Ark of the
Testament? Was it open? No! There's a thick veil up there
that said, no entrance. This means you. It's closed. And only one guy can go in there
once a year, and that's a high priest. And then not without
blood. But John sees it. And it's opened. Somebody has opened the way.
Somebody has opened the very temple of God, the very abode
of God. Somebody has opened it up for
us! Come on in! This is your home! You're welcome in the presence,
right in the presence of the Holy God. Who opened that up? You know. You know. Christ Jesus. How did He open
it up? By His bloody death. He opened
it up. Oh, thank God there's an open
door into heaven. and an opening into the very
presence of a holy God. Christ Jesus opened the door.
And you know what? He is the door. And He is the
way. He is the way to God.
Jim Byrd
About Jim Byrd
Jim Byrd serves as a teacher and pastor of 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland Kentucky, USA.

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